The Painted Tent

by Victor Canning

  ‘Oh, yes, sir… I know that now. But still…’ Smiler paused.

  ‘But still what?’

  ‘Well, sir – to be honest, although it’s been a worry at times I wouldn’t have missed the last year for anything, because you see, sir, I would never have known about wanting to be a vet, and Fria and the Prince, and… Oh, gosh!’

  The Inspector cocked one eyebrow at Smiler and said, ‘Perhaps you’d better go and lie down. All the excitement and then the cider have been a bit too much for you.’

  Up in his room Smiler threw himself on his bed and kicked his legs in the air and it was all he could do not to shout his joy aloud. He was out of trouble! He could stay here! He didn’t have to go back to Ethel and Albert. Better still. No approved school. Completely cleared, he was. An innocent man. Gosh, that Johnny Pickering! Blimey Old Reilly, he’d like to have seen his face when the police walked in. Bet he never finished his eggs and bacon and –

  He jumped off the bed suddenly. Johnny Pickering and the pebble. He looked at the mantelshelf, at the small clay model. There was Johnny Pickering, shoulders bowed but – miraculously – the pebble was no longer on his back. It had slipped free from his shoulders and lay on the shelf at his side. Smiler stared at it in awe. Crikeys, the Duchess had been right! (Much later the thought occurred to him that maybe the Inspector had told her everything before he had been called to the farmhouse and, while he was being questioned, she had slipped up and taken the pebble off. Then he pushed it loyally from his mind. Not the Duchess. Oh, no. She would never do a thing like that.)

  That evening at supper – which was a very happy affair – Smiler said to the Duchess, ‘Who do you think wrote all those letters to Johnny Pickering?’

  ‘Well, who do you think?’

  ‘I don’t know. It wasn’t you, was it, ma’am?’

  ‘No. But it was a good friend of yours.’ The Duchess smiled, one hand stroking Scampi who sat in his usual place on her lap. ‘Someone, too, who travels around a bit.’

  Smiler cried, ‘Mr Jimmy! Is that it?’

  ‘I’d guess so, Sammy. That’s the thing about Jimmy. No trouble’s too much for a friend.’

  ‘Gosh, that was pretty clever of him. Sending those things and sort of preying on Johnny Pickering’s mind and then when the police walked in – Whow! No wonder he blurted it all out.’

  ‘That was in Jimmy’s mind all right.’

  Smiler was silent for a moment or two and then he said quietly, ‘Why was the Inspector so interested in Mr Jimmy and all that? And he asked me, too, if I’d heard of anyone called Maxie Martin or seen any suspicious strangers around here. I didn’t get that at all. Did he ask you that, ma’am?’

  ‘More or less.’

  ‘And do you know anything about Maxie Martin?’

  Pursing her lips a little, the Duchess eyed Smiler across the table and then said quietly, ‘Yes, I know someone called Maxie Martin. And I think it’s time you did, too. He’s a man who was in Princetown prison and escaped nearly two months ago. The police are still looking for him. The reason they’re interested in us is that Maxie Martin is Mr Jimmy’s half-brother.’

  Eyes wide, Smiler said, ‘An escaped convict! And he’s Mr Jimmy’s half-brother… Oh, I see. The police must think that Mr Jimmy helped him.’

  ‘They certainly do.’

  Smiler let this sink in for a moment or two, and then he said, ‘I suppose I’d better not ask you if he did help Maxie Martin?’

  The Duchess smiled. ‘You’re growing up, Sammy. You couldn’t have put it more diplomatically. No, I don’t think you’d better ask me.’

  ‘Anyway, I don’t care if he did help him. He helped me, too. He must have had a good reason. What’s a half-brother?’

  The Duchess shook her head, her curls bobbing gently and said, ‘Not anything, really. It’s what they liked to think they were. The Duke and I … well, when Jimmy was about ten years old, we more or less adopted Maxie. His mother and father were travelling people and they both got killed in an accident on the road. So we took Maxie, and he and Jimmy became like twins. Always in one another’s pockets, always in mischief and so on together.’

  ‘I see. But why did Maxie go to prison?’

  ‘Because of his wife. She was a Romany, a lovely girl, and Maxie loved her. He thought the sun rose in her eyes in the morning and the moon floated there at night. He worshipped her. But she was a wild thing and one day she ran off with another man, after telling Maxie that she didn’t love him any more. Maxie had to take it, and he did. But after about a year the other man… well, he treated her badly, knocked her about, and eventually he left her ill and without money and … well, she killed herself. So Maxie went after the man and killed him.’

  ‘Crikeys!’

  ‘There was no way the law could punish the man, so Maxie made his own law – and he went to Princetown.’

  ‘But Mr Jimmy stood, by him and helped him to escape, and even now he’s –’

  ‘That’s another story, Sammy, and you can tell it any way you like to yourself. So far as I’m concerned Maxie Martin was like a second son. But, as you know, the law of the land is the law. You can’t go round making your own laws.’

  Oh, yes, I know that, ma’am. But I can see why Mr Jimmy … well, if someone’s like your own flesh and blood, you’ve got to stand by them, haven’t you?’

  The Duchess got up from her chair and looked down at him. She said solemnly, ‘It’s a good question and as old as time, but as far as I know nobody yet has ever found a true answer to it.’

  That night as Smiler lay in bed in the dark, he suddenly sat up with a jerk, remembering something which had long gone from his mind. Highford House and Mr Jimmy Jago and the little hazel besom and… and…

  11. The Dangerous Days

  The days of May came and went, and each fresh day put on some new brilliance and colouring to garb itself with the high panoply of summer. The nests held fledgelings, hungry ever, gaping great orange-skinned throats upwards for their food. The growing young cuckoos, strangers in hedge-sparrow and reed-bunting nests, had long hoisted the legitimate fledgelings into the hollow of their backs and tipped them out of the nests to die. Summer is birth and death and joy and despair. The may trees bloomed in a cloudburst of white. Dragonand damselfly nymphs climbed the river-weed stalks to the surface and shucked their grotesque disguises to hatch and fly winged in blue and silver, copper and green-bronzed ephemeral glory under the sun. Gorse and blooms misted the meadows and river-banks with their Midas touch. The Spring lambs had grown leggy and awkward, forsaking the grace and joy of their young games. The rhododendrons around Highford House made a patchwork of red and purple against the dark green of firs, and the white and red candles of the chestnuts were in full blaze. It was a time of hunting and being hunted, a time of hard labour and danger for every creature that had young to feed and foster. For them this was no holiday time. Nature had opened her summer school and there was never a second chance if a single of her lessons went unheeded.

  Before June was in, Smiler paid a visit to Albert and Sister Ethel in, Bristol and his sister never once grumbled at him, not even when he upset a cup of tea on the new carpet of her front parlour. He told them all his adventures and left with them a letter to be sent to his father. And he learnt that his father would soon be back home. But although he had quite enjoyed visiting them, he was happy to return to Devon.

  Long before this, of course, he had written to Laura and given her all the news, and the letter which she had sent back was so private and precious that he decided that he would keep it all his life and never let anyone eke see it. In the letter was a photograph of Laura which he put in a frame and it now stood on the mantelshelf in his bedroom, alongside the clay figure of Johnny Pickering, pebble at his feet, which he had not been able to bring himself to throw away because he felt that it was part of his good luck and had to be kept.

  He went regularly to Mr Samkin and one evening, when Sandra was not there, he told
him all about himself and his adventures. He was the only one in the neighbourhood that he told except, of course, P.C. Grimble, who now always stopped and had a chat with him when they met.

  Sandra Parsons had become more of a problem to him because she was forever hanging around or asking him to tea, or to Barnstaple to go to the cinema. It was as though she knew that he had no thoughts for anyone but Laura and cheerfully and saucily took this as a challenge, enjoying his embarrassment which was considerably increased now, because whenever other people were around she would refer to him as ‘Sammy, my darling’ – and this particularly if Trevor Green was present.

  And, as often as he could, Smiler went up to Highford to visit the peregrines.

  Just over four weeks after Fria’s last egg had been laid the first peregrine was hatched, breaking out of its shell with the help of the rough egg-tooth on the end of its beak. Four days later there were three nestlings in the recess and Fria brooded them now, feeling their living stir beneath her body. For almost a week Fria refused to leave the eyrie, even to catch the food the tiercel would have dropped to her. The tiercel brought the food to the lip of the recess and Fria would feed there. Prince would stand by, watching her eat, and now and then they would talk to one another in harsh croakings and low whickering noises.

  The first time that Smiler saw Prince bring food to the ledge he guessed that the eggs must have hatched and his hands shook as he watched the pair through his field-glasses. He decided that he would come up daily and the first time that he saw Fria and the tiercel off the eyrie together he would put up his ladder and have a look at the recess.

  At Highford Maxie Martin was still living in his underground vault and was getting worried because he had not heard from Jimmy Jago and his food was beginning to run short. But until his food was gone he had no intention of leaving the place. Jimmy would come. He had all the faith in the world in Jimmy. But life he knew was full of the unexpected and if, by some stroke of Fate, Jimmy did not come – then he would have to look after himself. In the meantime he took his exercise at night and before going down at first light he would stand and watch the tower and the peregrines.

  He knew before Smiler that the eggs had hatched because one morning after the first egg’s hatching, he picked up from the foot of the tower part of the broken shell which Fria had cleared from the recess. The following morning there was more shell on the ground. As the light crept over the hill Maxie would stand and watch the dark silhouette of the tiercel perched on the tower-top take slow colour from the sky, revealing sleek slate-dark wings and tail, the pale chest-mantle with its bold streaks and the face-markings growing plainer each moment. He waited always until the tiercel with a soft kak-kak-kak to his mate would launch himself into the air and start the first hunting sortie of the day. When that happened Maxie knew that it was time for him to go to ground.

  Two weeks after the last peregrine was born Smiler saw the young. It was a Saturday, afternoon and from die house roof he saw Fria come to the edge of the recess, shake her plumage and fly off to join the tiercel who was hanging a thousand feet up above the wood.

  Smiler climbed down, got his ladder and set it up inside the tower. He climbed up to the back of the recess and looked in. It was a moment he was never to forget. The three peregrines were huddled together not more than a foot from him. Their eyes were now open and their bodies were covered with a greyish-white, fluffy down. One, a falcon, larger than the others, was propped up on its bottom, its back resting against the other two, and its feet were pushed out in front to keep it in position. Three of them … Fria’s babies … Smiler had a moment of intense pride. Fria had come from captivity and into the wild state which should always have been hers. She had learned to look after herself, had been joined by a mate and now had young. Although he knew that it really had little to do with him, he felt as though he had been of some help … that, maybe, if he hadn’t been around it would never have happened.

  As he balanced on the ladder watching the young there was a call from outside the tower and the three peregrines suddenly stirred into activity, thin necks raised, heads wobbling and their beaks open. A shadow darkened the outside of the recess and Fria was on the ledge holding a pigeon.

  Smiler stood transfixed, hidden by the inner gloom of the tower, and for the first time in his life – though he was to see it again – he saw a falcon feed her young. She plumed the dead bird and, tearing off small scraps of flesh, held them in the edges of her beak and presented them to the young who grabbed them from her, snatching and fighting feebly for their food. Now, really close to Fria, Smiler saw the change in her, the glossiness of her plumage, the golden boldness of her cere and legs, the intense, vital light of her eyes and the imperious regality of her masked face. Fria she was, Fria free and now Fria a queen in her own domain, nobility marked in her every movement

  He wrote to Laura that night and told her all about it. His diary for that day read:

  There are three peregrines. Eyases they really should be called. They’re funny things. In a way like little, feeble old men. One is much bigger than the others so I think Fria must have brought off a falcon and two tiercels. She flew off after feeding them and I didn’t stay to watch longer in case she spotted me.

  Trevor Green came up the hill as I was coming back. He hooted and swerved his car towards me a bit. A pretty poor sort of joke I thought He’s got a mean face and I don’t like him – but since I’m pretty sure now he let Fria loose in the barn I suppose I should be thankful to him.

  As often as he could, Smiler got away to watch Fria and Prince. But now, with June half done, there was a lot of work on the farm. In the evenings when he was not with Mr Samkin he worked on his own, so that except for a quick visit during the week it was usually on Saturday or Sunday that he made his real trips to Highford.

  One week-end he climbed his ladder when the parent birds were away from the eyrie. He was surprised at the change in the peregrines. Already the signs of feathering showed in their down and they were active, if not entirely steady, on their feet. While he watched, two of them fought together over the clean stripped carcase of a small bird. The other, eyes alert, pecked at the occasional fly or bluebottle that had taken up quarters in the recess to scavenge on the remains of the kills which lay on the ledge. This time, as he watched, the tiercel came to the recess with a small, collared dove. But within a few seconds of landing he must have sensed Smiler’s presence or seen some slight movement he had made. He gave a sudden cry and flew off, leaving the young birds to harry and worry around the dead dove, clamouring in frustration.

  It was that week-end that Trevor Green – already once the instrument of fate in Fria’s life – discovered the peregrine’s eyrie. On the Friday evening he asked Sandra Parsons if she would go to a dance with him in a near-by village on the following night. Sandra said that she couldn’t because she was going out with somebody else. This was not the truth. She had neglected her work with Mr Samkin recently and Mr Samkin had made it clear that she had better do something about it. She had decided that she would work at her studies each evening over the week-end but she was not going to tell Trevor Green that.

  He said, ‘What are you doing then?’

  ‘That’s my business.’

  ‘Who are you going out with and where?’

  ‘Wouldn’t you like to know.’

  ‘I can guess. It’s that Sammy Miles.’

  ‘Maybe, and then maybe not.’ Although basically she liked Trevor, there was an imp of mischief in her which prompted her always to tease him. One day she probably would marry him, but there was no call to let him think that he already owned her.

  Sourly, Trevor Green said, ‘I can’t see what you see in him. All those freckles and that snub nose.’

  ‘Listen to who’s talking. Take a look at yourself in the mirror. You’re no oil-painting. Anyway, I didn’t say I was going with him. As a matter of fact –’ it was fiction, and sparked in her by the glum look on Trevor’s face and
the exciting feeling of the power she had over him – I’m not going out with him, It’s a boy I met in Barnstaple. A doctor’s son. He’s tall and dark and an absolute dream – and that’s all I’m going to tell you.’

  But Trevor Green did not believe her. He knew Sandra, knew that often she would say the first thing that came into her mind. She was going off with Sammy Miles, he was sure of that. Mooning about in the woods or talking about poetry and books.

  He decided to watch the farm at Bullay brook the next evening and make sure for himself. So it was that at half-past seven when Smiler came out from an early supper and set off to pay a visit to Highford, Trevor Green was watching him from the hazel copse just above the stone bridge over the brook.

  He began to follow Smiler, working up through the fields at the side of the hill road, and he was certain in his mind that he was off to meet Sandra somewhere in the woods.

  Half an hour later Trevor Green, somewhat puzzled, stood hidden in the rhododendron bushes beyond Highford House and saw Smiler climb on to the roof of the ruined building and sit down behind the parapet. He decided that this must be a secret meeting-place which Sandra and Smiler used, so he settled down to wait.

  A few minutes later Trevor Green saw the tiercel. Prince came back over the woods from the north, flying high and holding a greenshank which he had taken over the first tidal stretch of the Taw miles downstream.

  The tiercel stooped from a thousand feet in a steep dive, whistled down over the far flank of the wood and then flattened out twenty feet above the rough pasture at the far end of the old parkland. The bird streaked across the grassland, swung sideways in a half roll to clear the ruined house and then rose to the top of the tower. Without stopping, the tiercel – which had grown more and more cautious as the young birds grew – slid by the opening of the recess, checked momentarily, and dropped the greenshank on to the recess lip and was gone, winging out of sight down the slope to the river.